I've suspected that Intel's Banias is just a souped up Pentium III for a while now. Van's Hardware comes close to confirming this with pictures from an actual demo of Banias along with some interesting Hyper-Threading info. It's apparently a Pentium III core boosted up to 1.6GHz and retro-fitted to a 400MHz P4 bus featuring a faster L2 cache interface and 1 MB of L2 cache. Man, can I get one of those chips and run it as my desktop PC? Van's says that at 1.6GHz it will consume about 24.5 watts, which they note is kind of high. I thought Banias would be the Crusoe killer? Not with wattages like that it won't, but maybe it will use a .09 micron process and get that down to about 15 watts. That would be my guess. The Chip-Architect has an article up about Prescott, a.k.a. Intel's .09 micron Pentium 4. As with Banias, there's talk of a 1 MB L2 cache (re-affirming in my mind that Banias has got to be .09 micron). Prescott is expected to reach and beat 4GHz clock speeds, and there is plenty of interesting info gathered here, as well as shots taken at DDR-II. There's also talk of how Yamhill (x86-64) implementation would take under 2% of extra die space. That would make sense, as Hammer is hardly expected to add die size due to x86-64. If you are interested, JC's News has put up a transcript of Intel's most recent earnings call. Personally, I find Intel's calls painfully dry compared to AMD's, but worth a listen if you're researching.

USER COMMENTS 32 comment(s)

Bananas(3:31pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)0.9 micron 1.6 Ghz PIII with 400 mhz FSB and a MEG of cashe. This Should have been the P4! Just guessing, but that would prob outperform a 2.0 Ghz P4 huh? Sounds more like comp for the Mobil XPs. AMD needs to kick themselves in the ass for loosing there performance lead. “DDR 333,400 -333,400 mhz FSB, More cashe.” Does anyone ever talk about this stuff at AMD? – by Front Side CannaBuss

P4…What!(4:19pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)PIII's are much faster and have a better architecture. Are these mobile chips? – by ???

yes they are(4:39pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)I want to see the benches for the Prescott chips more then the Banias chips. how long befor E.S. leak? – by Nataku

Intel Banias(6:10pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)Hey nobody knows that the Banias is based on the enhanced version of the Intel Netburst Pentium 4-based architecture and the 1.6GHz version will probably perform like 2.2GHz Pentium 4-m as stated in xbitlabs and will probably have lower power consumption than 24Watts. It will cost more than Pentium 4-m though. – by Geek Reader

roadmap?(6:46pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)When do we expect to see a 4GHz Prescott? – by Manu

banias is(7:09pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)based on the p3 architecture using a 400FSB and faster/more cache – by me

HT(8:05pm EST Fri Apr 19 2002)With HyperThreading enabled, does anyone know if Prescott will be able to compete clock for clock with and Athlon XP?

Will it's IPC hit nine or more? – by MDguy

Manu(12:25am EST Sat Apr 20 2002)I would say by late 3Q next year.

MDGuy I am not sure in theory it could doubble, compared to the 100Mhz bus Northwoods, but it woukld need killer memory technoloy to supply this chip with the data as it needs it, say dual channel 32 bit RDRAM PC800 – by Nataku

Idiots(2:18am EST Sat Apr 20 2002)Didnt you PC Idiots Zha Zha mainly know the the G4 processor runs video 402% faster than any pc and is 103% faster than a P4 and 98% faster than a AMD. I spend my career testing computers for gemini a goverment based company so we need the best of the best and your puny pc a 2.0ghz viao and a P4 2.0 plus one amd 1.5Ghz cant even beat a low line 800mhz macintosh till you can compare shut up and go find a good use to your shitty PC like a door mat. – oh and most PC cant even reach past 14 giga flops – by Know It All

bain la, je le vois ca comme une INSULTE!(3:27am EST Sat Apr 20 2002)I see we have some Mac lovers here. That's cool, but why do you, “Know It All”, insist on putting down the PC consumers? I find your comments both degernerative to this site and its readers. Please in the future keep your comments sane and within reason. We all know that “Macs are the best”, we, the average PC user have to sit and listen to all of you egotistical Mac buffs brag about your latest (above $3,000) computer. For me, however I'll stick with my PC for now as I hope to play 98% of the games released this year. (Something I wouldn't be able to do on a Mac) I don't like Macs, but I don't hate em, c'est lui, pas moi! – by Gerard Depardieu

The know it all`(11:50am EST Sat Apr 20 2002)The athlon XP gets 5319000000 flops (estimated) at top speed, or 5.319 gigaflops. But, that all depends on what software your using. So, get me an average of flops for every pc benchmark used, and then we can talk. – by Warplex

Request.(1:15pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002)Can the moderator please cut out Know It All's comments, he's spammed the same message across all the articles I've read today and it's irritating.

What!?(5:44pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002)I thought Prescott was the code name for the 478-pin Pentium 4's. I know that those 4GHZ processors aren't going to still be 478-pin becuase before they even come out, Intel will have switched all of their processors to 604-pin. So confusing. Try thinking of some new code names Intel! – by jjj

Cool(5:54pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002)Intel Banias at 1.6GHZ will probably perform as fast as a PIII-M at 2.2. P4-Ms are as slow as regualar mobile PIIIs. – by zzzz

True Logic(7:27pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002)It would be really close but pc1600 RDRAM would do, or one 64bit wide PC 800 would do too. – by Nataku

Know It All and Warplex(7:39pm EST Sat Apr 20 2002)both the AXP and P4 avg more flops than any G4.

The truth be told, the only reason Apple has an edge is it UNIX based OS, and that is starting to slip away with the more stuff they cram into it.

I want to see the benceh that prove that a mac can run video 402% faster than any pc?

and that it is 103%, and 98% faster than the P4 and AXP, and the apps thats true on. – by Nataku

Know it all(8:36am EST Sun Apr 21 2002)has been posting on almost every news item this message, and he then posts under the name of that weird french guy thing. Ignore him. – by Warplex

eh la!(7:31pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002)warplex, i may be french, but I am certainly not… well actually umm, ya I am weird. But that's not the point. The point is that mac's are ok, but their users are usually (NOT ALWAYS) stuck up and snotty. That's the point I'm trying to get across. Aller(Go) AMD! – by Gerard Depardieu

Banias(8:15pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002)Yeah Banias is a Pentium 4 core or else it would never be able to reach 1.6GHz that easily at 0.13 micron process and why would Intel continue the Pentium !!! architecture? It should be bit faster per clock than Pentium !!!-m and reach much higher clock speeds considering what Prescott will have. Prescott is 478-pin not 604-pin. – by Geek Reader

Banias(9:20pm EST Sun Apr 21 2002)Banias is based on the p6 architecture.

i remember reading it at news.com – by MDguy

Main question: What happened with Bluetooth?(7:08am EST Mon Apr 22 2002)Last year and begin this year Intel talked about Banias having integrated 802.11 and Bluetooth connectivity. What happened since then? Apple and Microsoft have joined the Bluetooth bandwagon and now early Bluetooth backer Intel isn't integrating Bluetooth into there chips????? Very weird.

February 28, 2002 — Intel's specifications for mainstream notebooks coming this fall will call for portables in the second half of 2003 that weigh 4.5 pounds and measure 1.2 inches thick, and that contain an optical drive, integrated 802.11 and Bluetooth. The machines will run on Banias, an upcoming energy-efficient processor. Much of the work, as in the past, will lie in reducing power consumption to extend battery life.

Although Lecta lacks a floppy drive, it bristles with other features designed to give it a central point in the home.A DVD Multi Drive plays and records DVDs and CDs, a TV tuner sucks in live entertainment and a Digital Video Interface and 6 channel audio blows it out again. And this being Intel's baby, it also has 802.11a wireless networking, gigabit Ethernet, multiple 1394 ports for digital video, and no fewer than eight USB 2.0 connections. Some of these are external for keyboard, mouse, scanner, camera and so on: some are internal and support options such as a Flash Media drive or Bluetooth modules — although Bluetooth is not in the specification, it was mentioned as a possibility at Lecta's launch. Serial ATA handles the hard disks, Intel Integrated Graphics takes care of the desktop and everything's coordinated with a Prescott next-generation Pentium 4 chip.

– by willem

Intel Developer Forum, Fall 2001(7:24am EST Mon Apr 22 2002)Get ready for the mobile Pentium 4. We're excited about this. We think it's going to have a very strong ramp next year in mobile have those systems ready.

Build power efficiency into all components of the platform. And develop for the future usage models. Think in terms of you're going to have notebooks that are very small, light. You're going to have to support three to four pound type systems, but you want wireless communications capability, like local-area networking or Bluetooth personal connectivity inside of those systems. Think about those types of usage models that we're going to see in those systems.

In summary, we are very, very pleased with the technology that we are providing, the leadership technology we're providing today with the Intel Mobile Pentium III Processor-M tomorrow, with the Pentium 4 processor and in the future, with Banias and its successors. We're excited about the mobile space, we're focused on these four value vectors, and we're going to be relentless in our execution in bringing these new technologies into mobile and in working with you to help bring this ultimate best-mobile-computing experience to users. Thank you very much.

Know it All(3:13pm EST Mon Apr 22 2002)I'm cring. Waaa WWAAA Why do I use a PC. Why. It just not fair. Why don't we all have Mac's. 403%!!!Oh my God WHY!!. They are so pretty and compatable with each other. Oh, Oh yea. I rememer why. I hate that one button mouse. PC133. Keep your $4000 Photoshop Machine.

Know it All(7:20pm EST Sun Dec 08 2002)Know it All, you honestly have no idea what your talking about. Motorola, the developer of the G4 has already moved most it's assets out of the CPU market, Apple has already considered using a IBM chip instead of the G5 for it's newest PowerPc. Now instead of just posting the crap that Apple's attack parrots spew every day, try looking for REAL benchmarks results. Latest version of Photoshop? P4 3.06 beats Dual G4 1.25 on EVERY test, After Effects? same results. SPEC int? SPEC fps? Pentium 4 slaughters the G4 in both. Don't even get me started on cross-platform benchmarks. I'm not saying Apple makes crappy computers, in fact, I prefer the Apple over the PC for most uses, mainly because of OS X, however, to be frank, I'm just sick of Apple fanboys, and marketing weasels start spewing off crap they have no idea about. – by Cube

Geek Reader(9:04pm EST Mon Dec 16 2002)Pentium 4 core ??No, no, no !!! Banias resembles P3 much more, as the original article suggests. To confirm this, simply look up the following data:1. where the name “Banias” comes from.2. where the chip was designed.3. where P3 was designed.4. why when every else being equal, P3 beats P4 MHz for MHz.

I am also tired of hearing about hyper-threading. It is a gimmick invented by the Intel marketing department to the unsuspecting general public. It really doesn't boost system performance much, except introducing performance penalties into P4 (that's why P3 is faster).– by Wanderer

sad twats!(9:51am EST Mon Jun 21 2004)you need to get out more you bunch of wankers you r all pricks and nerds – by the shadow next door

amd and pentiums (12:41am EST Sun Jan 23 2005)shouldnt every one know that all amd does is reverse engineer pentiums and sell generic versions just wonderin?? – by lord_rhys

www(2:59pm EST Sun May 08 2005)December 26th is boxing day in the UK, not December 25th – by www